GalwayThe Workhouse

1801 Act of Union• A reaction to the 1798 rebellion.• The Dublin Parliament is abolished, and power is moved to London.• Ireland becomes part of the United Kingdom.

19th-century Ireland: 3 Cultural Groups• The Anglican Ascendancy (10-15% of the population)• The Calvinist Settlers in the North (a further 10% of the population)• The Catholic Irish (about 75-80% of the population)

Anglican Ascendancy• The cultural and political elite, about 10-15% of the population. • Owned the majority of land in Ireland, and rented it out to (mostly

Catholic) labourers. • The ascendancy was less reliant on traditional social class, since its

superiority was primarily based on sectarian (religious) divide.• Ascendancy power was mostly based around Dublin.• Much of the Ascendancy were educated in England, and would have had

English accents and traditions.• The Ascendancy controlled the Irish parliament, until it was abolished

after the act of Union of 1801.

Calvinist/Dissenter Settlers• Descended from English and Scottish Planters, who had populated

colonial settlements since 1609. • About 10% of the population. • Spoke English and a Scottish dialect known as Scotch. • Since they were not Anglican, they were not part of the Ascendancy. • Mostly lived in the northern province called Ulster.• The Calvinist north, unlike the rest of the Island, became a centre of

the Industrial revolution (mostly ship building and Linen production).• Most Ulster protestants favoured the Union with Britain.

The Catholic Irish• The vast majority of the country (75-80%)• Mostly spoke Gaelic and followed Gaelic traditions.• A highly agricultural society: In most of Ireland, the changes of the

Industrial Revolution did not take place. Farmers rented land together, and lived in tiny villages called clachans. • Had been banned from public life until 1829 by the Penal Laws. • Among the poorest peasantry in Europe.• Through renting practices and inheritance laws, the Catholic Irish often

have miniscule areas of land to farm; increasingly, many cannot rent any land at all.

Laissez Faire policy• According to the British Government, it was the local landlord’s policy

to help the starving – so they received no Government help.• Irish peasants would have to work through the Workhouse system if

they wanted food (like the British poor). This was to prevent them from becoming lazy.• Many were put to work on symbolic projects, such as roads that led

nowhere, or giant decorative ‘follies’. • The workhouse system was immediately overwhelmed by the mass of

starving peasants

Workhouse in Galway, one of the poorest regions in 19th-century Ireland

Sir Charles Trevelyan

Trevelyan on the Famine:• "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson,

that calamity must not be too much mitigated … We must not complain of what we really want to obtain. If small farmers go, and their landlords are reduced to sell portions of their estates to persons who will invest capital we shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement of the country” – from a letter of 1846

Irish immigrant neighborhood in Manchester

Irish immigration to America

Charles Stewart Parnell: Nationalist Leader

Captain Charles Boycott

Charles Stewart Parnell’s call to ostracise Captain Boycott• When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you

must shun him on the roadside when you meet him – you must shun him in the streets of the town – you must shun him in the shop – you must shun him on the fair green and in the market place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of the country, as if he were the leper of old – you must show him your detestation of the crime he committed.

Michael Collins: Irish Nationalist Leader

Partition of Ireland 1922

Unionist Mural in Belfast

Republican Murals in Belfast